


The Schuylkill Incident

by bitch_I_might_be



Series: Thin Ice 'Verse [6]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alexander Hamilton is George Washington's Biological Son, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Don't know what came over me there, Grief/Mourning, Historical Inaccuracy, It's vague but still, John is Not Okay, M/M, Neither is Washington, Not Really Character Death, The Schuylkill Incident, This one has Alex's POV!, You fall into a river ONCE and suddenly a whole military camp thinks you're dead, You know how real life Hamilton was just assumed dead at schuylkill?, alex is so done, because my hypothetical inlaws hate me too, but the author doesn't understand emotions, idk man I just really vibe with their dynamic, implied suicidal intentions, smh, stay safe peeps, why do I always write about John and Washington?, yeah that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:36:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27642215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitch_I_might_be/pseuds/bitch_I_might_be
Summary: In which Alexander dies, except that he doesn't.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton & George Washington, Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens, John Laurens & George Washington
Series: Thin Ice 'Verse [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2004361
Comments: 32
Kudos: 140





	The Schuylkill Incident

**Author's Note:**

> This took a long ass time to write because I'm horrible with emotions.  
> Lafayette and Burr weren't actually with Hamilton during Schuylkill, but I don't care and I do what I want, lol.  
> John is literally like 'I pretend I do not see it' for the entire beginning, we stan a king in denial.  
> Uhh yeah, we got a part from Alex's pov in this, just because I couldn't figure out how to make it work from either John's or Washington's, but he was fun to write. A funky little hoe, that one :)

"Are you listening to me, mon ami? Did you hear a word of what I just said to you?"

John blinked away the haze that had descended over his senses like a thick fog and focused on Lafayette's devastated face.

He had to think for a moment. "You said Alex is gone," he said, tongue heavy like lead in his mouth.

Lafayette exchanged a glance with Burr, who- where did he come from? Had he been there all this time?

"Right…" Laf said and swallowed, like he had to fight for the words to come out. Burr laid a hand on his arm, eyes on the ground and the corners of his mouth turned down. "You understand, then?"

John blinked again. He had a weird feeling he was missing an essential part of the conversation. "I… don't think I do."

Laf sighed and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes; he stayed like that for a long moment, and when he dropped his arms back to his side, his eyes had filled with tears.

"John. Listen to me. Are you listening?"

He nodded, dazed, feeling as though his head was filled with cotton. Laf stared at him, unconvinced. He reached out and took him by the shoulders, shaking him gently and making him look into his troubled eyes.

" _Listen_. When we were crossing back over the river- the redcoats shot at us. A few of us were hit." Laf swallowed again, voice thick. "Are you with me so far?"

John ripped his gaze from the frenchman's eyes and scrutinised his collar instead, but Laf shook at his shoulders again.

" _John_ ," he pressed out.

"I understand," he said, quiet.

"Alex got shot. They shot his horse out from under him. He went into the river. He didn't come back up."

John stared at a patch Laf had missed when he shaved that morning and frowned. “Was it the left shoulder again?”

Laf stared as if John had spontaneously spawned a second head. “What?”

“His left shoulder,” he said, his lids heavy all of a sudden, so he let them drop shut. “The one Lee shot him in. Was it the left again? That would do some lasting damage, I assume.”

Laf’s hands slipped from his shoulders and dropped back to his sides, and when John opened his eyes again, tears shone on his cheeks; John’s brow furrowed.

“ _John_ ,” he said with an edge of desperation. Burr kept his eyes firmly on the ground. “There’s not- there’s not going to _be_ any lasting damage, mon ami. He’s _gone_. Alexander is gone. He isn’t coming back. Do you not understand?”

He thought about that. “He wouldn’t leave me, Laf,” he said.

“Oh, mon doux idiot,” he mumbled without any heat, even though John was fairly certain he had just insulted him, and pulled him close, wrapped his arms around his back and held on tight. John stood in his embrace and didn’t know what to do with himself.

Alex couldn’t be gone. He had just been there that morning, warm and alive as he kissed him good-bye and told him he loved him, eyes bright and crinkled in a smile. No, John didn’t know what was going on, but Alex couldn’t be- the world was still turning, after all, and the sky was still up, and the ground beneath his feet hadn’t caved in. Alex had to be just fine.

“They got him in the arm,” Burr spoke up all of a sudden, reminding John of his presence. Well, that wasn’t any better than the shoulder. Better than the stomach, though.

“Arm’s not too bad, I reckon,” he said, distracted.

“John,” Laf said, low enough his voice was almost a growl, and shoved him away until they could see each other’s faces again. His dark eyes swam with tears, but they were narrowed and he spotted a glint of anger, like an afterthought. “Alexander Hamilton is dead. He was shot and fell into the Schuylkill. He was losing blood, the rapid was too dangerous even for someone who didn’t only have one functioning arm, and the water was freezing. There’s no way he could have survived that. Get it into your thick head, Laurens!”

John blinked and looked past Lafayette at Burr, who turned away from him; he couldn’t meet his gaze.

Something was wrong with his head, he thought, or maybe his heart. He didn’t feel right.

Then, a thought struck.

“Did you tell the general?” he asked.

Burr cleared his throat. “I did. I’ve never been thrown out of somewhere quicker,” he said, lips pulled into an uninspired half-smile and eyes dark and somewhere else entirely.

“I need to speak to him,” he said and stepped around Laf.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea!” Burr called out after him, but John didn’t stop. “Laurens! For Christ’s sake, give the man five minutes to grieve!”

John made his way to the general’s private tent, as he doubted he would find him at headquarters considering the circumstances. He knocked on the tent-pole, but there was no answer. He knocked again.

“Sir, it’s me.” Still no answer. He pushed aside the tent-flap and entered anyway. The tent had the same dimensions of every other in camp, but in place of the second or even third cot was a desk that was littered with documents- documents. A lot of them written by Alex.

The general sat at the desk, elbows on the table-top and face in his hands, and he didn’t look up even though he must have heard John enter.

John dropped down into one of the two chairs in front of the desk; Alex and him had been there just a few nights ago, and him and Washington had bickered about something, as usual, and John had sat and listened and taken Alex’s hand, and Alex had smiled at him, and the general had given him a look, but not one that was entirely mean, one that told John the man still tolerated him. 

They were alone now, just the two of them, because Alex was... well, he was- gone?

He stared down at his own boots, sight blurry and throat tight.

Washington did nothing to acknowledge him for a long time. He couldn’t be sure how long of a time it was, but it was enough for him to pick apart the things Laf had said to him–or rather ‘at him’.

Alex had been shot. He fell into the river. The river was freezing. 

Alex hated the cold.

He couldn’t be gone.

The general dropped his hands to the table and crossed his arms on top of it, drawing them close to his chest, but he still wouldn’t look at John. His gaze was fixed on a parchment directly in front of him, and John didn’t even have to look too closely to know it was signed ‘A. Ham’.

“My son is dead,” he said, and John flinched. Alex wasn’t _gone_. He couldn’t be.

“Sir?” he said, quietly, voice cracking on the word.

The general looked up from the table and fixed him with an empty stare, and John wished he could look away, but he couldn’t, he was caught, stuck. Something in Washington’s eyes had shattered so thoroughly they didn’t even look close to Alexander’s any longer.

“My son. Dead. Twenty-one years old and _dead_.”

John squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw tight enough he could hear his own bones grind–his fingers clawed into the fabric of his breeches as he shoved aside the childish urge to cover his ears with his hands. He didn’t want to hear this, he didn’t need to listen to this, he didn’t _have_ to, the general was wrong, they didn’t know what happened to Alex. He had to be alive, there was no other possibility.

Too much was left. Alex had so much left to do, to achieve. He never quit. This wouldn’t stop him, it couldn’t.

He ripped his eyes back open when a broken sob reached his ears. Washington covered his eyes with a hand, the other balled to a fist on the desk, but John could watch the silver lines of tears track down his face and _drip drip drip_ onto the table.

This wasn’t right. He shouldn’t be this upset, because his son was _fine_. Probably. They didn’t know where he was, after all, but Alex knew what he was doing, he could manage on his own for a while.

“Lord, what have I done? What have I done to deserve this? To have my boy taken from me?” Another sob broke from somewhere deep and echoed around the tent; it brought a sting to John’s own eyes.

Washington was falling apart right in front of him, and he was at a loss.

“This can’t be it,” he said, and the general’s hand dropped from his face to reveal a depth of hurt and grief John couldn’t have imagined on the man’s face if he tried. “he can’t be gone, Sir, he was _just there_ , he wouldn’t go like this, he wouldn’t just leave us-”

“Laurens, if you don’t shut your mouth right this second I will kill you myself,” he cut in, and John clicked his mouth shut. The general stared at him with red eyes, face blotchy, gaze hard and cold and lifeless. He looked far older than John had ever seen him. Another sob shook his body.

Washington dropped his face back into one hand and rubbed at his eyes, but the steady flow of tears didn’t halt or even slow. “I will never understand why he loved you so,” he said. Maybe it was something about the way he said it, or maybe it was the fact that he _did_ recognise they truly loved each other, or maybe it was because the general already spoke of his son in the past tense–the sentence broke John.

Everything jerked to a sudden stop. The sky crumbled apart and came down on top of John’s head. The ground beneath his feet quaked and gave in, and he fell. 

Alex was gone.

John doubled over in his seat, chest tight, stomach lurching and churning, and he slapped a hand over his mouth when he tasted bile at the back of his throat. No no no no _no_ -

He swallowed a few times and righted himself slowly. The general looked back at him, and this time, John knew the loss and devastation and hurt reflected in his own eyes. 

“This can’t be it,” John repeated, choked, desperate, breath hitching.

Washington closed his eyes and swallowed. “This is my fault,” he said, and wept. “Mine alone. I send him on _one_ mission to get him off my back, one harmless, little day-job and he ends up dead. I should have never let him go, I should have kept him close, I should have been _there_ , I-”

“It’s not your fault, Sir,” John said, hot tears burning down his face. His chest was hollowed out, empty. That had been the first time he had ever interrupted the man.

“And what the fuck do you know, Laurens?” he thundered, voice suddenly too loud for the small space they were in, but John didn’t even flinch. He just closed his eyes and cried in silence.

“You couldn’t have known,” he said. It would be easy to blame Washington, so easy, to shout accusations and bang his fists on the table and unload all his hurt on the man, but he wouldn’t do it.

They had to be united in this, together in their grief, for they only had each other–they had both loved Alexander more than could be put into words, and they had both lost him too early, too suddenly.

“I should have,” the general said, quiet again. “I should have known. I should have.” His face twisted; he looked like a part of him was lost, like he was just half a person.

“It wasn’t even because of you,” he said, defeated. John felt he had a completely different man in front of him–Washington was like a shadow of himself, the silhouette was the same, but his presence was changed, subdued, broken.

“Sir?” John asked, voice thin, and wiped at his cheek.

Washington chuckled, and John hated the sound. It was flat, and hollow, and coated in tears. “I had assumed if I were to- to lose him. That if I were to lose him, it would have been your fault. That you would have been found out and executed, and I wouldn’t have been around to do anything. But it wasn’t your fault. I can’t blame you. I have no one to blame but myself.”

John sniffled and swallowed around the lump in his throat. He stared at one of the documents, upside down to him but still so unmistakably his Alexander’s too fast handwriting.

“Sir, I- I don’t know what to do now. How to go on. Can I even go on? I don’t know if I can. What do we do, Sir?” Maybe it was unfair to ask so much of the man, a man who had just lost his only son, but he was still John’s commanding officer, even now, and he really needed to be told what to do right about then.

Washington slumped back into his seat and stared just past John, unseeing. “I have to write to my wife,” he said, a fresh wave of tears dripping from his chin. “God,” he choked and gripped the edge of the table, as though to ground himself. “How do I tell Martha I killed our son?”

John’s eyes slipped shut. 

There was a hole in his chest. A hole that expanded and shrunk and squeezed and pulsed, a hole in the place his heart should be, but his heart wasn’t there anymore, because his heart had been Alex’s, and Alex was gone.

“Sir, please,” he said, but his plea broke into a sob. “Please tell me what to do. I don’t- I can’t-”

“I don’t _know_ , John,” he said, and it shattered the small sliver of control John had left. He hunched over and buried his face in hands. A scream tore from his throat, one he hadn’t felt coming, one he hadn’t meant to let out, and it hurt his own ears.

The tent fell away from around him. He was alone in the dark, and it _hurt_. It hurt so much, more than he would have thought possible, more than he could take, it was too much and he was _all alone_. 

Was this a cruel joke? Did God send him Alex to tempt him into sin, make him fall in love and have him be happy, just to rip it all away? Was this hell?

Hell couldn’t be any worse. Maybe he should just lay down and die and save himself the trouble.

His head snapped to the side as a sharp pain exploded across his cheek, and he looked up at the general, who had come to stand in front of him at some point, through a curtain of tears. Washington’s hand was still raised, maybe to smack him again if he had to. John rubbed at his smarting cheek.

“Do not talk like that, young man,” he pressed out. John hadn’t been aware he had spoken at all.

“Alex was- God, he _was_ , Sir. I can’t- not without him.”

Washington faltered, and the righteous anger faded from his features, leaving only what John knew to be on his own face as well. “You’ll have to,” he said, but he might as well just have slapped him again.

He shook his head from side to side, slowly at first, but the movement grew frantic as his breathing sped up. Not without Alex. He couldn’t go on without Alex, he needed to see what Alex would create, what he would build after the war, what he would use all that genius for when they didn’t have to fight battles with congress. He needed to wake up to Alex every day in a real bed, without fear of discovery, he needed to hold him and tell him he loved him, he needed to kiss him, just once, just one more time, _one more time_ -

“John,” Washington said, the ghost of his usual authority infusing the word.

John got up onto his weak and shaky legs and scrubbed his hands over his face, attempted to blink away the fresh tears, but only managed to make them spill over. He tried to brush past his general, but Washington stretched his arm out and cut off his path.

“I need to go, Sir,” he said, his voice wrecked and not quite his own. He didn’t look at him; maybe because he feared the man would read his intention on his face, maybe because he was afraid he would see something of Alex in his.

“I order you to stay,” he said, and damn him, John couldn’t disobey a direct order.

They didn’t move for a long moment, the tent silent around them, the world stopped in its tracks. John took a deep breath and let it out slowly; something in his chest panged. Another sob fought its way up his throat, but it came out broken.

“It just hurts so much, Sir,” he said and turned to look at him, just in time to see his face twist in pained recognition.

“I know, my boy. I know,” he said, and broke down again. The arm that had stopped him from leaving came up to curl around his shoulders and pulled, and John found himself pressed up against the man, arms like vices around him and his chest quaking against his own.

John hesitated only for a moment before he wrapped his arms around Washington’s back in turn and hid his face in his shoulder. 

Everything hurt, everything was wrong, off-beat, discoloured. His world lay in shambles at his feet, but so did the general’s–at least they didn’t have to hit the ground and shatter on their own.

* * *

When Alex finally made it back to camp, the sun had almost set. At least he wasn’t dripping wet anymore. Still wet. Not dripping. It was the little things.

He was fucking cold, though, but he supposed the cold had numbed the sting of the scrape on his arm, where a stray bullet had hit him–it wasn’t too bad, he didn’t think, but it probably still needed stitches.

He made for the corner of camp where their own tent was first, because he’d had some kind of day, and he would very much like some dry clothes and a hug from John if he was offering.

As he drew nearer, he noticed a commotion. A commotion that turned out to be most men who had been on the mission with him that day, a lot of the aides, and some soldiers he didn’t even recognise, sitting around a multitude of camp-fires and drinking. That was fair, he thought, they did lose a couple of men today. At least he thought so. He was a little out of the loop, after all.

He spotted Laf, who sat with Burr and Tilghman and a few others, and changed his course.

He stopped just inside the circle of light of their fire and cleared his throat. “Hey. Anyone mind filling me in?”

Conversation ceased. The men stared back at him, eyes huge, some of them pale, like they had just held witness to some kind of apparition floating past.

He raised an eyebrow. “What?”

Laf sprung up from his place and rushed at Alex, grabbed him by the shoulders and cupped his face and splayed a hand on his chest as though to check if his heart was still beating. “Mon petit lion,” he said, tears in his eyes. “You’re alive.” He pulled him into a tight embrace, one Alex reciprocated, even as he frowned in confusion.

“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Dear Lord, Hamilton,” Burr said as he came closer and clapped a hand to his shoulder when Laf released him from his hold. “We thought- I mean, we saw you get shot, and you fell into the river, and you didn’t resurface, so-”

Alex blinked, realisation dawning on him. “Of course I didn’t resurface. If I _had_ , the redcoats would have known I was still alive.”

Laf and Burr exchanged a set of wide-eyed looks.

“Ah. Yes. That does make sense,” Laf said, rueful.

“You told everyone I was dead, didn't you,” Alex said, all of a sudden tired.

“Yeah. Sorry.”

That explained why they all stared at him like they had seen a ghost. They _were_ seeing a ghost. But where- oh no. “John?” he asked, urgent. Laf’s rueful smile fell and he pulled a guilty grimace.

“I might have explained to him, more than once, that you were dead. Might have yelled at him a little, too.”

“You’re a great help, Laf,” Alex said, a scowl on his face. The man knew about them, and his approach to telling one of them the other was dead was to _yell it at them_?

“I’m sorry, mon ami, but I thought you were dead! I was upset, too!”

Alex sighed and rubbed at his brow–that was something his father did a lot, he really shouldn’t be as obvious as copying his mannerisms, too- he felt like he’d been thrown into the Schuylkill all over again as his thoughts screeched to a halt. His father. His father probably thought him dead, too. John and his father.

“Where-” he began, but Burr cut him off.

“The last anyone saw of Laurens was a couple hours ago. He said he wanted to talk to General Washington,” he said.

Lord show him mercy.

“I have to go, right now. Clear this up, make sure people know I am, in fact, _alive_ ,” he said and turned on his heel without awaiting an answer. He all but ran to his father’s tent. It had been hours, he had been gone for hours, and they thought he was dead this whole time.

Alex was wet, cold, and out of breath when he finally reached the tent. He didn’t bother knocking or announcing his presence in any shape or form, he just shoved aside the tent-flap and burst in.

“I’m not dead!” he called, breathing heavily. “Not dead!” he repeated and dragged a hand through his hair. “Just surrounded by idiots.”

The scene that lay before him was, well. A sight to behold. The first thing he noticed was the broken chair, various pieces of wood scattered around the tent; a multitude of papers covered the ground, and the only source of light was an oil-lamp on the desk.

John sat on the ground, his back to the desk, an empty glass of something dangling from his fingers, red-rimmed eyes glued to Alex’s face. Dear God, he looked a mess, and absolutely exhausted on top of that. Alex’s heart twinged with guilt.

His father was on the chair behind the desk, his glass on the table–it still contained some amber liquid. They had been drinking whiskey. He couldn’t blame them.

John just stared, looking like he was on the edge of a complete break-down, so it was his father who made the first move; he got up and stepped around the desk slowly. As he came closer he saw he wasn’t doing much better; he looked ruined, and like he had aged twenty years in just a few hours.

“Alex?” he said, quiet, voice wrecked as though he had screamed it hoarse.

Alex came closer until he was less than an arm’s length away from him. “I’m alive, Pa. I’m sorry, this shouldn’t have-”

The air was knocked out of him when his father reached out and hauled him close, clung to him like he'd thought he would never get to do it again, which- yeah, he _had_ thought that, and it made something deep inside Alex twist painfully.

He put his head to his father's strong shoulder; it trembled beneath his forehead, and he swallowed. "I'm fine, Papa. I'm fine. Everything's all right."

“ _Alex_ ,” he repeated, and dear Lord, he was crying, so of course Alex himself teared up as well. 

“I’m sorry, it’s fine, I’m fine. This- this won’t happen again, I’m _sorry_ , Papa, please don’t cry-”

“God, my boy,” he sobbed and tangled one hand in Alex’s damp hair, pulling him even closer, the other arm around his back in an almost painful grip. “My sweet boy, my heart, _Alexander._ ”

Alex drew in a deep breath and tried his hardest not to let his emotions get the better of him; he had to be strong now, he had no right to be upset. He couldn’t even imagine what kind of waking nightmare his father and John had lived through these past couple hours.

“I’m here. It’s over,” he said and rubbed a hand up and down his father’s back, just like he would do every time he comforted Alex.

A few long moments passed like that, and his father’s sobs gradually lessened. Alex was gently pried away from him so he could see his face; hands stroked through his hair and along his cheeks, the touches soft like he feared he might fall apart at any second.

The hands settled at the sides of his head, and Alex clasped one of his father’s wrists, if only to ground him some more, as his father put a lingering kiss to his forehead.

“I’m fine, Papa. Don’t worry,” he said, rubbing a thumb along the wrist in his grip.

His father let out a chuckle–an odd sound, hopeful but broken, and he could still hear the grief behind it–and shook his head. “You’re wet, is what you are. You’ll get sick again.”

Alex smiled up at him. How typical. “Probably,” he agreed and closed his eyes when his father kissed his forehead again.

The sound of movement to his left caught his attention, and he opened his eyes again and turned; John had heaved himself up into a standing position. His father’s hands fell away and he was across the small space in a fraction of a second.

He slammed into John, threw his arms around his neck and held on for dear life. John clung to him, but he didn’t say a word, so Alex started talking.

“I’m sorry, so sorry, my love, it’s over, I’m here now, it’ll all be fine, you’ll see. I’m not going anywhere, I’m not leaving you, I’m sorry,” he mumbled, but he wasn’t sure John could even hear him.

He pulled away a little and cupped John’s face in his hands so he could look him in the eye, stroked his thumb along his freckles. “John,” he said softly. “Talk to me?”

John blinked at him, and a haze seemed to lift from his eyes. “Alex, darling,” he breathed out and lurched forward, gripped him tighter and smashed their lips together in a messy, desperate kiss; Alex opened his mouth on instinct, and John slipped his tongue in, and _oh_. That felt right. That was good.

He broke the kiss reluctantly and put their foreheads together instead, distantly aware that his father was in the room with them and his day had been hard enough, he didn’t need to watch them do _that_.

“Sorry,” John said and swallowed thickly. “I just, I- I- I thought I’d lost you, darling, I-”

“Shh, I know,” Alex interrupted softly and pressed a chaste kiss to his lips.

“I’m so glad you’re safe,” he said and pulled him close again, held him and scattered little kisses along his hair-line.

John startled suddenly and shifted so he could see his face again. “Laf said you’d been shot.”

Alex sighed and suppressed the urge to rub at his brow, a headache threatening to bloom behind his forehead. “You mean the man who told you I was dead?”

John just frowned at him, so he conceded. 

“I was _scraped_. I barely even feel it anymore.”

He didn’t look convinced. Another hand settled on his back, and he craned his neck to look back at his father.

“We’ll get you some dry clothes, and then you’ll have that _scrape_ checked. Then, bedrest. Because you will catch something, and you will not make an ordeal out of it like last time, do you understand me?”

Usually Alex would have replied with something snarky, something that would make his father sigh and shake his head and order him as his commander instead of asking him as his father, but- he couldn’t. He still looked so raw, so hurt, and even though he tried to conceal the lingering pain, Alex knew it to be there. He had hurt him enough for one day.

So, he just nodded. “Yes, Pa.”

His father exhaled a shaky breath and swallowed, choked up again. He stepped closer still, until Alex was sure the three of them had never been in such close vicinity before, and grabbed both John and him around the shoulders, dragged them close–well, that was new.

“I’m never letting either of you fools out of my sight ever again,” he said.

“I think you have the right idea there, Sir,” John responded, trying to smile but not quite getting there. 

That was, well. Alex didn’t know how he felt about that, yet. He decided to just go with it for the time being and leaned into his father, reached out to take John’s hand.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” he said, huddled between the two men he loved most. “Don’t you worry.”

**Author's Note:**

> According to google translate, 'mon doux idiot' means 'my sweet idiot'. Take this with a grain of salt, though.  
> John really just is a sweet idiot and I needed someone to say it :)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
